Texas Teen Playing Pokemon Go Bit by Venomous Snake

July 14, 2016

Another Pokemon Go mishap has occurred with a Pokemon Go player in the week the game was released in the United States. A teenager in Flower Mound, TX was bitten by a suspected copperhead snake while he was playing Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game that has stormed into the mobile phones of millions of people in the United States.

The game uses the camera and GPS of mobile phones and then displays Pokemon, little creatures on the screen that gamers are supposed to capture.

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A Texas teen was playing Pokemon GO when he was bit by a suspected copperhead snake.

Lane Smith, 18, was hunting Pokemon with a fellow Pokemon trainer in Flower Mound’s Parker Square June 12 when the game showed them a “Pokestation, or Pokestop on their phone screen, theStar Telegramreported.

These areas are supposed to be easy places to catch Pokemon. Smith, who told the paper that he was paying more attention to the game than where he was walking, stepped on the snake, which promptly bit him on the right toe (Smith was wearing flip flops). He told the paper that he saw what he thought was a stick in his peripheral vision, and stepped on it, not knowing it was a snake.

A quick trip to the hospital determined that just one fang broke the skin and doctors determined that antivenin was not necessary.

The funny thing about the incident was the emergency medical personnel had guessed he was playing the game when he got bit.

“It was funny listening to him talk about how EMS guessed he was bit playing the game, and chatted with him about it,” medical center spokeswoman CeCe Clemens told the Star Telegram. “I don’t think mom thought it was so funny.”